Students, researchers, attorneys, and many others often are required to laboriously hand copy portions or excerpts from library texts or other printed materials. Students, in particular, as well as writers and researchers in other fields spend a great deal of time in abstracting textbooks in preparation for examinations and presentations. Although most public and private libraries presently have photocopying machines for reproducing pages of originals, these machines are frequently in use by others when needed, or are out of service, or require supplies, or are otherwise not convenient. Additionally, many times there is no need for copying the entire pages of the reference work but only excerpts or portions of the work, such as summaries, tables, quotations, or graphs.
Many efforts have been made in the past to provide an inexpensive and portable copier for these purposes, and a number of patents have issued disclosing copiers to solve this problem. For example, a series of patents have issued to Garfield U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,054,248; 3,052,755; 3,064,078; and others. All of these patents, however require the use of manually scanned optical sensors or probes connected by cable to a separate printer that at best is required to be carried in a briefcase, and is not as small and portable as desired.
Other patents have issued for photographic types of copiers, or others that purport to be small and portable but require scanning mechanisms or guides for the optical scanners as are variously disclosed in Sheridan U.S. Pat. No. 2,292,668; Roganti U.S. Pat. No. 3,073,234; Roosen U.S. Pat. No. 3,884,518; and Ozawa U.S. Pat. No. 4,319,283.